Photogeneration and enhanced charge transport in aligned smectic liquid crystalline organic semiconductor

Abstract

Liquid crystalline organic semiconductors are emerging candidates for applications in electronic and photonic devices. One of the most attractive aspects of such materials is the potential, in principle, to easily control and manipulate the molecular alignment of the semiconductor over large length scales. Here, we explore the consequences of alignment in a model smectic liquid crystalline semiconductor, and find that the photogeneration efficiency is a strong function of incident polarization in aligned samples. A straightforward theory shows that such behavior is a general feature of aligned materials, regardless of the details of photophysics. Furthermore, we uncover tentative evidence that the mobility of aligned samples is substantially enhanced. Both of these phenomena are of significant technological importance.